Syrian forces used helicopters and heavy weapons as they tried to push rebels from Aleppo and Damascus after United Nations monitors completed their withdrawal from the country.

Government forces attacked rebel positions in Aleppo, the country’s largest city, with helicopter gunships, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights[2] said on its Facebook page yesterday. Clashes also took place around Damascus and in Daraa, the U.K.-based group said.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s forces killed 440 people yesterday, the opposition Local Coordination Committees said in an e-mailed statement. Among the victims were 221 people in the Damascus suburb of Dariya, the opposition Syrian National Council said on its Facebook page. Many of the dead in Dariya were killed execution-style, the Coordination Committees said. Thirty-nine soldiers died in the fighting yesterday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights[3] said.

State-run Syrian television said Syrian forces had killed “terrorists” in Dariya and confiscated weapons and explosives.